VIRTUAL KEY BOARD

GENERATION CHANGE IN KEYBOARDS

Your computer keyboard is probably a magnet for spilled soda, crumbs, dust, and other unsavory debris. Dump enough junk between the keys and the circuit board below--a "mini-computer" equipped with hundreds of pulsing electric circuit switches--will eventually bonk..




WANNA GET RID OF THEM

Now such messes may soon be history, thanks to inventors at the Israeli company VKB. Their stroke of genius: a neon red full-size virtual keyboard projects onto any flat surface. The device consists of a mini-projector that fires infrared laser beams (fast-moving energy waves) in the shape of a real keyboard, and a sensor that detects when the beams are broken by hand movement




Now, however, we get a little glimpse with promise that we're not that far off of schedule. You can now get the Laser Virtual Keyboard for quite a reasonable price. Powered by Blue tooth, the matchbox-sized device uses a laser to project a 63 key QWERTY keyboard onto any flat surface. Designed to work with Palm, Symbian and Windows Mobile operating systems, it was originally meant for your PDA. Fortunately, it is supported by Windowsxp, and has some OS X support as well. This is a great idea, even if it is plagued by two gaping holes: two hours of battery life and a 63 key keyboard. According to Think Geek, it comes with an AC adapter, so for desktop use it'll do fine (if you actually have a spare power outlet). I think the biggest hurdle is the tiny keyboard. Sure, 63 keys is fine for your PDA, but for your PC, 102 is the only way to go. After all, those function keys are pretty handy.

Despite these limitations, this is a brilliant idea. This virtual keyboard has the amazing ability to be immune from spills, crumbs, dirt and cat hair (I know that one way too well.). And of course, the high-tech wow factor. This thing just looks cool, and would impress just about anyone. When the 102 key models come out, I think my current keyboard will have to be retired.




This is a projector concept by designer Sunman Kwon uses similar technology to that of the Virtual Keyboard . Each of your finger segments on the inside of your hand are turned into keys, representing three letters for each segment or joint. What you end up with, is a keyboard literally in the palm of your hand. This would make for a remarkably portable input device that could just dangle on your wrist waiting for the next time you needed it, then with a little Bluetooth handshake, you're ready to type up a storm.


More and more people are relying on portable media devices for everyday instead of desktop pc's, meaning that they have to rely on the tiny keyboards that are part of the interface of their PDA or cellphone . A standard computer keyboard would not be a practical accessory, no matter how much faster correspondence would become, but the Projector Keyboard can solve that problem. The keyboard is about the size of a small cell phone itself and projects a standard keyboard onto any flat surface, from the table.

SOME OTHER APPLICATIONS

Optical Techniques. Optical techniques are in theory limited in resolution to half the wavelength of the light being used, which keeps them out of the lower nanoscale, but various approaches can overcome these limits, such as the use of quantum mechanical properties of light or interferometry (measuring things using the interference of light beams), which has recently been shown to have the potential to detect movements at a 1000th of the wavelength of the light being used.

Litho graphics. The mask-based lithographic tools and techniques used in the traditional semiconductor industry have also entered the nano realm (sub 100nm), but not yet for mass production.

Additional Tools. The list is by no means complete. A few other tools and techniques that operate on the nanoscale are: nuclear magnetic resonance; molecular beam epitaxy and laser tweezers (whereby laser beams are used to hold and manipulate molecules). ; And a tool called the nanomanipulator that borrows from the world of virtual reality to allow researchers to "feel" individual atoms. Research into new tools and techniques is extremely vibrant.

Computer Modeling. Finally, a mention of a tool that goes back some years now but will surely have an impact on nanotechnology, computer modeling (much used by the molecular nanotechnologists). New supercomputers are being commissioned, and distributed computing is being brought into play to simulate the behavior of matter at the atomic and molecular level. The study of the way proteins fold (an essential determinant of their function), and efforts to predict this, represent one well established application, and modeling of billions of atoms to predict the behavior of bulk solids is now being achieved. Computer modeling will no doubt prove very useful in understanding and predicting the behavior of nanoscale structures because they operate at what is sometimes referred to as the mesoscale, an area where both classical and quantum mechanics influence behavior. While researchers are used to using the mathematics behind classical and quantum mechanics individually, the combination of the two in the same structures presents challenges and new models that incorporate both, and their interplay, are becoming increasingly important.

IN TOOLS

Before you can make something, you have to have the tools. For this reason, this category has the greatest number of established companies. By tools we mean the collection of technologies that allow us to see, manipulate and engineer at the atomic level.

STMs. It is now twenty years since the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) was invented, allowing us to see atoms for the first time. The STM works by detecting small currents flowing between the microscope tip and the sample being observed (the current flows because of quantum mechanical tunneling).

AFMs. Five years later a device with similar capabilities, the atomic force microscope (AFM), was invented, which has a tiny probe on the end of a cantilever (like a springboard). The probe makes contact with the surface of the sample and, as it moves over it, is deflected by the variations in the surface, causing the cantilever to bend. A laser beam detects the bending of the cantilever and, again, we get atomic resolution. Advances are being made in using these in various mediums, including liquids, which is particularly useful for looking at biological samples.

Scanning Probe Microscopes. The AFM and the STM are collectively called scanning probe microscopes and can not just produce images but actually move atoms around, as was demonstrated when IBM used an SPM to write the company's letters in xenon atoms (see picture). SPMs have potential for high-density data storage technologies and can be used to write nanoscale lines, as in dip-pen nanolithography. In case you are imagining some vast machine in a laboratory, AFMs and STMs can be bought as devices not much bigger than a mouse that plug into a computer's USB port.

APPLICATIONS

Probably the two most useful ways of organizing the nanotech world are through the technology, i.e. what is being made, and through applications, i.e. where these products will find a home. For our concise introduction, we use a mixture:

• Tools

• Materials

• Devices

• Techniques for Building Nanoscale Structures

• Electronics and Information Technology

• Life Sciences

• Power and Processes and the Environment

Any attempt to categorize the world in such a crude way is necessarily imperfect and there will always be certain technologies that span groups or do not fit neatly into one or the other. Furthermore, the multidisciplinary nature of nanotechnology means that is difficult to separate advances in, for example, tools, from their effect on life sciences.

ABILITY TO SHRINK STUFF

Another common misconception is that nanotechnology is primarily concerned with making things smaller. This has been exacerbated by images of tiny bulls, and miniature guitars that can be strummed with the tip of an AFM, that while newsworthy; merely demonstrate our newfound control of matter at the sub-micron scale. While almost the whole focus of micro-technologies has been on taking macro-scale devices such as transistors and mechanical systems and making them smaller, nanotechnology is more concerned with our ability to create from the bottom up. In electronics, there is a growing realization that with the end of the CMOS roadmap in sight at around 10 nm, combined with the uncertainly principal's limit of Von Neuman electronics at 2 nm, that merely making things smaller will not help us. Replacing CMOS transistors on a one for one basis with some type of nano device would have the effect of drastically increasing fabrication costs, while offering only a marginal improvement over current technologies.

However, nanotechnology offers us a way out of this technological and financial cul-de-sac by building devices from the bottom up. Techniques such as self assembly, perhaps assisted by templates created by nano imprint lithography, a notable European success, combined with our understanding of the workings of polymers and molecules such as Rotoxane at the nanoscale open up a whole new host of possibilities. Whether it is avoiding Moore's second law by switching to plastic electronics or using molecular electronics, our understanding of the behavior of materials on the scale of small molecules allows a variety of alternative approaches, to produce smarter, cheaper devices. The new understandings will also allow us to design new architectures; with the end result that functionality will become a more valid measure of performance than transistor density or operations per second.

NANOTECHNOLOGY A FANTASTIC VOYAGE

Shrinking machines down to the size where they can be inserted into the human body in order to detect and repair diseased cells is a popular idea of the benefits of nanotechnology, and one that even comes close to reality. Many companies are already in clinical trials for drug delivery mechanisms based on nanotechnology, but unfortunately none of them involve miniature submarines. It turns out that there are whole ranges of more efficient ways that nanotechnology can enable better drug delivery without resorting to the use of nanomachines.

Just the concept of navigating ones way around the body at will does not bear serious scrutiny. Imagine attempting to go against the flow in an artery-- it would be like swimming upstream in a fast flowing river, while boulders the size of houses, red and while blood cells, rained down on you. Current medical applications of nanotechnology are far more likely to involve improved delivery methods, such as pulmonary or epidermal methods to avoid having to pass through the stomach, encapsulation for both delivery and delayed release, and eventually the integration of detection with delivery, in order for drugs to be delivered exactly where they are needed, thus minimizing side effects on healthy tissue and cells. As far as navigation goes, delivery will be by exactly the same method that the human body uses, going with the flow and `dropping anchor' when the drug encounters its target.

NANOTECHNOLOGY AS SCIENCE FRICTION

While there is a commonly held belief that nanotechnology is a futuristic science with applications 25 years in the future and beyond, nanotechnology is anything but science fiction. In the last 15 years over a dozen Nobel prizes have been awarded in nanotechnology, from the development of the scanning probe microscope (SPM), to the discovery of fullerenes. According to CMP Científica, over 600 companies are currently active in nanotechnology, from small venture capital backed start-ups to some of the world's largest corporations such as IBM and Samsung. Governments and corporations worldwide have ploughed over $4 billion into nanotechnology in the last year alone. Almost every university in the world has a nanotechnology department, or will have at least applied for the funding for one.

Even more significantly, there are companies applying nanotechnology to a variety of products we can already buy, such as automobile parts, clothing and ski wax. Nanotechnology is already all around us if you know where to look.

The confusion arises in part because many people in the business world do not know where to look. Over the last decade, technology has become synonymous with computers, software and communications, whether the Internet or mobile telephones. Many of the initial applications of nanotechnology are materials related, such as additives for plastics, nanocarbon particles for improved steels, coatings and improved catalysts for the petrochemical industry. All of these are technology-based industries, maybe not new ones, but industries with multi-billion dollar markets.

MOLECULAR MACHINES

Then comes the second big idea, getting these molecular machines to make copies of themselves, which then make copies of themselves, which then make copies, and so on. This would lead to exponential growth of tiny machines that could then be used to construct macro scale objects from appropriate molecular feedstock’s, and with no wastage. In theory, large, complex structures could be built with atomic precision out of something as robust as diamond, or similar "diamondoid" substances. This is molecular manufacturing.

These ideas were first made widely known by Dr. K. Eric Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation, and have since then found their home at the Foresight Institute (www.foresight.org) and the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing (www.imm.org). Drexler followed up in 1992 with a more technical look at the subject in his book Nanosystems, and is currently working on an updated edition of "Engines".

The potential of such technology to change our world is indeed truly staggering, if it can be realized. Whether it can or not is a subject of debate, sometimes fierce. There is, though, an unassailable argument for the feasibility, in principle, of self-replicating machines that construct things on a molecular level, this being that they already exist—all living things, including ourselves, are built this way. However, Drexler also went on to outline scenarios for making and organizing armies of programmable assemblers. These scenarios are quite different from what we see in nature and here there is certainly more room for debate, especially about matters of complexity, control, and the practicability of making assemblers general purpose (molecular machinery in nature is generally very specific in function, but operates in concert with a host of other machines in a hugely-complex orchestrated effort that is still poorly understood). It has been argued that approaches more akin to those used by nature might be more fruitful than some outlined by Drexler. On the other hand, nature's technology has evolved by chance. Conscious design could in principle allow the creation of machines and materials that nature never produced.

If you accept that general-purpose, programmable assemblers can be constructed, you still have to be careful about predicting what they could make. Building up a three-dimensional structure purely out of diamond, even one with a complex shape, is a relatively simple programming task. Making a steak, which is in turn made of cells, which are themselves vastly complex machines, is another matter altogether. Drexler never made such a suggestion, but it and similar have appeared in the media, which has done nothing to promote public understanding or reasoned debate.

Drexler speculated extensively on the possibilities of molecular machines and saw the potential for not only a dramatic impacts on society the world over, but also dangers. The most famous, and contentious, of these is the prospect of self-replicating assemblers getting out of control and consuming everything in their path to make more copies of themselves, turning everything into”gray goo" in the process. There are good arguments against such an apocalyptic scenario, some of which are presented on the Foresight Institute's own web site (http://www.foresight.org/NanoRev/Ecophagy.html), but a replicating machine could certainly present dangers comparable to a genetically engineered virus, and probably worse (genetically engineered viruses, however, will remain a much more real threat for some time to come). Drexler's recognition of the potential impact and dangers led him to decide that, even if they were still a long way off, it wasn't too early to start preparing for them. A part of the mission of the Foresight Institute, and the research oriented Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, is to do just that. Their guidelines for developing molecular nanotechnology responsibly are outlined at http://www.foresight.org/guidelines/current.html.

Assuming that a molecular assembler, as envisaged by Drexler, can be made (and be made to be economically productive), it won't be for some time yet—even the optimists talk about a period of ten to twenty years or more. However, current work on molecular nanotechnology is not limited to theoretical papers and computer models. The company Zyvex, which bills itself as the world's first molecular nanotechnology company, has recently teamed up with some respected academic groups and attracted government funding to work on building assemblers, starting at the micro scale but, hopefully, moving down to the nanoscale.

LONG TERM POSSIBILITIES

You may have read in the popular press of an imminent future, with tiny submarines patrolling our bodies, stitching up damaged tissue, zapping an occasional cancer cell or invading virus or switching off an errant gene; nanorobots weaving extensions to our brains to enhance our intelligence; desktop machines that can make you a diamond ring; a table that will transform into a chair at the flick of a remote control; and even immortality. These examples represent the sensationalism and distortion of the popular press but are based on some seriously made predictions of possible futures. Still, it's just so much science fiction, surely?

Not necessarily. While some of the wilder visions of nanotech-enabled futures are extremely speculative, they stem largely from quite straightforward ideas founded in solid science, and generally referred to as molecular nanotechnology (MNT). However, it is important to distinguish between MNT, the potential benefits of which are long term, and the mainstream applications of nanotechnology, which are of more interest to investors in the near and medium terms. There is big difference between molecular assemblers and the use of nanoclay particles as additives in the plastics industry. Failure to distinguish between what is available now and what is theoretically possible at some point in the future has been the cause of many of the misconceptions about nanotechnology. It should be noted that MNT has attracted little interest from the business community, owing to its long timescales, and has not, rightly or wrongly, been accepted by the scientific community at large.

The core idea of MNT is that of making robotic machines, called assemblers, on a molecular scale, that are capable of constructing materials an atom or a molecule at a time by precisely placing reactive groups (this is called positional assembly). This could lead to the creation of new substances not found in nature and which cannot be synthesized by existing methods such as solution chemistry. Molecular modeling has been used to support the potential existence and stability of such materials.

SOURCES IN VARIOUS OTHER COUNTRIES

- EC

European Consortium on Nanomaterials

Network on Nanoelectronics "Phantoms", lead by the Inter-university

Microelectronics Center (IMEC), Liuven, Belgium

- Germany

Network of competency in nanotechnology, 6 centers territorially distributed

Institute of Nanotechnology, Karlsruhe

- France

Institute for Micro and Nanotechnologies (MINATECH), Grenoble, France (Established in 2001)

- Sweden

The Nanometer Structure Consortium, Lund

- Switzerland

Nanotechnology Network, coordinated from University of Basel, Switzerland

- Canada

National Institute of nanotechnology (established in 2001)

- Brazil

National Synchrotron Light Laboratory

- China

National Nanotechnology Research Center, Beijing (established in 2001)

- Taiwan

Industrial Technology Research Institute (established in 2001)

- Korea

Nanodevice R&D network

- Russia

Institute of Applied Physics, St. Petersburg

- Australia

CSIRO Nanotechnology Group (established in 2001)

- Romania

Nanotechnology Center, National Institute of Microsystems

Nanostructured Materials Center, National Institute of Physics

- Israel

Group of four academic centers at the Tel Aviv University, Technion University, Hebrew University, and Ben Gurion University (established in 2001)

GOVERMENT SOURCES,CENTERS IN JAPAN

Nanotechnology Research Center, RIKEN (Center established in 2001)

Institute of Nanomaterials, Tohoku University, Sendai

Nanomaterials Laboratory, National Institute of Materials Science, Tsukuba (established in 2001)

Silicon Nanotechnology Center, Tsukuba (established in 2001)

Examples of centers and networks primarily supported by government sources

While single and smaller group investigators do most of the nanoscale R&D, the larger research centers play an essential role in the development of major topics and establishing of partnerships. Centers providelong-term coherence, interdisciplinary, and a meeting place of people with multiple expertise and tools covering the various needs of nanotechnology development. A large proportion of the major nanotechnology centers around the world have been established in the last year. Several illustrations of key research centers are listed below:

- In the U.S.

National Nanofabrication User Network (NNUN):

5 universities, with the lead at the Cornell University

Distributed Center for Advanced Electronics Simulation (DesCArtES):

4 universities with the lead at the University of Illinois - Urbana

Materials Research Science and Technology Centers: distributed through U.S.

Engineering Research Centers, components on nanotechnology

Nanobiotechnology Science and Technology Center (Cornell University)

Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers (6 centers established in 2001)

California NanoSystems Institute (established in 2001)

NASA Nanoscience Centers (3 university based centers established in 2001)

DOE Nanoscience Laboratories (3 national laboratory centers to be established in 2002)

NANOTECH ORGANISATIONS

Some non-profit nanotech organizations

European NanoBusiness Association

Institute of Nanotechnology (UK)

The NanoBusiness Alliance (US)

Canadian Nanobusiness Alliance

NanoSIG

Beckman Institute (US)

Center for Nanospace Technologies (US)

Foresight Institute (US)

Institute for Molecular Manufacturing (US)

Michigan Molecular Institute (US)

The interest from the investment community has been sparked by some impressive-sounding claims about the potential revenues that nanotechnology will generate, although VCs are showing a healthy level of caution when it comes to actually handing over money. The US's National Science Foundation predicts that the total market for nanotech products and services will reach $1 trillion by 2015 (National Science Foundation, “Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology,” March 2001) and huge variations in existing and predicted market sizes have been seen. These are generally offered unqualified and the size of some figures suggests that they are including revenues for any industry seeing an impact from nanotech. Counting the revenues of these industries as nanotechnology revenues is misleading. The huge semiconductor industry is moving into the nanoscale and companies in the sector are sometimes casting themselves as nanotechnology companies. Considering the revenues of the semiconductor industry, as nanotechnology will produce figures that are of use to no one—a more sophisticated approach is needed, separating out pure nanotechnology revenues, such as those of nanotube manufacturers, from the contribution of nanotechnology to existing industries.

A number of non-profit organizations focused on the development of nanotechnology have been in existence for some time, while still others are just now being created. Europe now has 86 nanotechnology networks, although most of these are purely scientific in nature.

We would categorize most of the activities discussed so far as relating to short- or medium-term technologies. In the long-term category there are ideas that often sound like science fiction and which are often over-hyped and misunderstood by the press or dismissed out of hand as fantasy. With the rider that these ideas are not just long-term, but often speculative, now we'll take a brief look at them.

NANO SCIENCE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Nanoscience research and development in universities around the world has intensified significantly over the past few years. It is now possible for students to specialize in nanoscience at the graduate level, with programs in nanotechnology at such leading US schools as Rice, Harvard, MIT and Cornell, and a full PhD in nanotechnology available from the University of Washington. In the UK, Cranfield and Leeds offer an MSc in nanoscience and nanotechnology; in Australia, Flinders and the University of New South Wales offer a BSc. Since the launch of the US's National Nanotechnology Initiative, more than thirty universities have announced plans for nanotech research centers in the US alone. Similar flurries of activity have been taking place among the global academic community.

There is growing interest from venture capital firms in nanotech-related companies; with over 20 nanotech investments in the first half of 2002 in the US and Europe, and more than $100 million invested in the US in the first half of 2002. Some of the world’s largest companies, including IBM, Motorola, Hewlett Packard, Lucent, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, NEC, Corning, Dow Chemical, and 3M have launched significant nanotech initiatives through their own venture capital funds or as a direct result of their own R&D. Some of the biggest spenders on R&D are allocating up to half of their long-term research budgets to nanotech. While initial interest has been greatest among the seed stage funders, many investment banks are now taking an interest, and some institutions are already creating nanotechnology funds.

STATS IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES

For the fiscal year 2002, the US government proposed $519 million dollars for nanotech research and the budget enacted by Congress is about $604 million, up from about $497 million proposed, and $422 million approved, in fiscal year 2001. The 2003 proposal is now $710 million (an extra $31 million in associated programs having been added to the original $679 million).

In Europe, 1.3 billion euros is earmarked for nanotechnology, new materials and production processes for the 2002 - 2006 Framework Programme, Figures coming out of Europe are sometimes confusing and contradictory, in part because much nanotechnology is funded in ways that don't specifically identify it as such. The table above shows the latest available spending figures for the EU plus individual European countries—it should not be forgotten that Europe is still far more a collection of individual countries than a bloc.

In the Far East spending is also impressive (see table). The Chinese figure doesn't initially seem that high but one has to allow for the fact that it buys a lot more in China than it would in the US, Europe or Japan. Adjusting for that, the figure is probably closer to $1 billion US equivalent.

Government nanotechnology spending in the Far East,2002
Japan	$650M
China	$200M
Taiwan	$150M
Singapore	$40M
Total	$1.19B

NANO STATISTICS

Note that statistics relating to the world of nanotechnology sometimes have to be approached with caution since it is not always easy to define nanotechnology's boundaries. Many technologies and areas of scientific research, especially in the biological sciences and biotechnology, are tending to be reclassified as nanotechnology. This has some justification because of the multidisciplinary nature of the subject and the synergies that will arise from this. As technologies mature, the term nanotechnology, with its current breadth of coverage, will likely be found to be too general and the current trend of grouping technologies under the one mantle will probably reverse.

Funding has grown at unprecedented rates in the last three years.

European nanoscience and nanotechnology spending in millions of euros (source: EC IST programme Future and Emerging Technologies, Technology Roadmap for Electronics)

Country	1997	1998	1999	2000
Austria	1.9	2.0	2.2	2.5
Belgium	0.9	1.0	1.1	1.2
Denmark		1.9	2.0	2.0
Finland	2.5	4.1	3.7	4.6
France	10.0	12.0	18.0	19.0
Germany	47.0	49.0	58.0	63.0
Greece	0.2	0.2	0.3	0.4
Ireland	0.4	0.4	0.5	3.5
Italy	1.7	2.6	4.4	6.3
Netherlands	4.3	4.7	6.2	6.9
Portugal	0.2	0.2	0.3	0.4
Spain	0.3	0.3	0.4	0.4
Sweden	2.2	3.4	5.6	5.8
United Kingdom	32.0	32.0	35.0	39.0
European Commission	23.0	26.0	27.0	29.0
Total	129.6	139.8	164.7	184.0